Choose Five - Teach Them



Time

15 minutes

Description

This lesson teaches that faith is about letting go of our problems and letting God handle them. It uses the story about Jesus feeding the 5,000 and highlights the faith of the little boy who was willing to give everything he had so that Jesus could work a miracle.

Scriptures

• John 6:1-13

Materials

• Vanilla wafers and goldfish crackers (enough for everyone to get some)

• Baskets to put the wafers and crackers in (12 baskets)

• Bible

Preparation

• Distribute the vanilla wafers and goldfish crackers among the twelve baskets and have them ready to distribute. You might want to arrange to have volunteers ready to pass them out before you begin teaching.

• Put markers in the Bible in the place where you want your volunteers to read the Scriptures for the lesson.

• Practice the script.

Procedure

• “I’m going to tell you a story about over 5,000 hungry people.”

• “Let’s read about it.” (Have volunteer read John 6:1-4.)

• “But that doesn’t tell us how many people were there. Let’s jump ahead a little.” (Have volunteer read John 6:10.)

• “So, there were 5,000 men. That’s just the men.”

• “We know from one of the other Gospel writers (Matthew 14:21) that there were even more people than that, because it says there were 5,000 men besides the women and children.”

• “I bet that most of the men brought their wives and children, too.”

• “If every man brought his wife and even just one child, there would have been fifteen thousand people! That’s a lot of hungry!”

• “Let’s keep reading.” (Have volunteer read John 6:5-6.)

• “You see, Jesus already knew what He was going to do, but He wanted to test them to see if their faith had grown from seeing Him do all the miracles He did.”

• “And what did Philip say?” (Have volunteer read Philip’s response from John 6:7.)

• “BZZZZZZZZZTTTTT!!! Wrong answer! Everyone say it with me, ‘BZZZZZZZTTTTT!!!!’”

• “Philip failed the test. He didn’t have any faith that Jesus could feed the people.”

• “But let’s see what Andrew does.” (Have volunteer read John 6:8-9.)

• “Andrew brought Jesus a young boy with a lunch sack, which contained five, small loaves of bread and two fishes.”

• “Andrew didn’t bring much, but he brought Jesus something.”

• “DING! DING! DING! Right answer! Everyone say it with me, ‘DING! DING! DING!’”

• “Believe it or not, even though Andrew still didn’t have enough faith to understand what Jesus could do, he was the one who passed the test.”

• “Philip brought Jesus nothing but doubt, but Andrew brought what he could find.”

• “He brought Jesus something, and when you’re talking about faith, something is always better than nothing.”

• “Touch your neighbor and say, ‘Something is better than nothing!’”

• “And what did Jesus do with that ‘something?’”

• “Well, first He organized everyone into groups and had them sit down.” (Organize participants into groups, and have them sit on the floor.)

• “Then He took the loaves and blessed the food. ‘God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food.’” (As you say this, hold up one of the baskets of wafers and crackers.)

• “Then, He fed just a few of those people, right?” (Expected response: “No…” As you ask this question, have some volunteers begin to pass out the baskets of Goldfish and Vanilla Wafers to groups of kids. They should continue until every group has a basket.)

• “No? Well, He fed the hungriest people, right?” (Expected response: “No…”)

• “No? Well, He fed all the men, right?” (Expected response: “No…”)

• “No? Well, maybe He fed just the women and children, right?” (Expected response: “No…”)

• “No? Well, who did He feed?” (Expected response: “Everybody!”)

• “Everybody? You mean He fed every single person? That’s amazing!”

• “Well, surely He told them to only have one serving each so that the food would last, right?” (Expected response: “No…”)

• “No? How much did He feed them?” (Have volunteer read John 6:11.)

• “He gave them as much as they wanted? That’s crazy! We’re talking maybe 15,000 people at an all-you-can-eat buffet! That’s a ton of food!”

• “But wait, it gets even better!” (Have volunteer read John 6:12-13.)

• “They gathered twelve doggy bags (or baskets)!”

• “Why do you think there were twelve baskets left over?” (Expected response: “There were 12 Apostles.” They may need some help making this connection.)

• “Exactly! That was one for each of the Apostles!”

• “I think Jesus was being funny.”

• “He was teasing them, because they hadn’t believed that He could feed all those people, so He gave each of them their own personal reminder!”

• “Now, Philip failed the test. Andrew passed the test (but just barely). But the boy did better than both of them. He got an A+!”

• “Can anyone tell me why?” (Expected response: “Because he gave everything he had.”)

• “Right! He gave his entire lunch!”

• “When it comes to faith, something is better than nothing but everything is better than something!”

• “Touch your neighbor and say, ‘Everything is better than something!’”

• “Think about that! He had to be just as hungry as everyone else there.”

• “Jesus had been teaching and healing all day, and it was now late in the afternoon.”

• “I’m sure the boy had to make a tough decision – keep his lunch and fill his grumbling belly or give it away and take the risk that he might go hungry.”

• “Faith always requires us to take a risk.”

• “Faith is the moment something leaves our hands and goes into God’s hands.”

• “We don’t know what God is going to do. He almost never tells us ahead of time.”

• “But we’ve got to trust that God will do something good and maybe something even better than we expect.”

• “The boy didn’t know what Jesus was going to do with his lunch.”

“There is no way he could have known. This had never happened before!”

• “But that was the test! Did the boy trust Jesus enough to let Him handle the problem?”

• “God sometimes allows problems in our lives because He wants to know if we will trust Him by putting things into His hands.”

• “To pass the test, we’ve got to let go of our problems and let God handle them.”

• “Jump up and yell, ‘I’m gonna LET GO and LET GOD!!’”

• “Yell it again, ‘I’m gonna LET GO and LET GOD!!’”

• “Awesome! That is what faith is all about!”

• “Let’s all work at having faith in God like the boy in the story.” (You may want to say the Rhyme Time below several times to reinforce the teaching point.)

Rhyme Time

When we practice letting go,

God will help our faith to grow.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download